Synduality Echo of Ada Review – The ultimate extraction experience

thesixthaxis.com:

I have not been able to stop thinking about Synduality Echo of Ada since I started playing it. When I wake up, I think of doing a quick run to get those last few cables I need to upgrade my crafting station. While I’m working, I think about what I should equip to deal with the snow bandits in the South Map reliably. As soon as I finish work, I hop onto the game and spend hours hunting resources, creatures, and other players. For years, I’ve been clamouring for a game that scratches that Escape From Tarkov-inspired extraction-shooter itch I’ve never had properly scratched. For Synduality Echo of Ada to not only grant that wish, but bundle it in with mecha combat, customisable characters, and rewarding base upgrades feels like all of my favourite things about gaming rolled up into one package.

Funnily enough, Synduality Echo of Ada isn’t just a standalone game release – it’s part of a wider Synduality multi-media franchise that kicked off in Japan a couple of years ago with the release of the anime Synduality: Noir. You won’t need to brush up on what happens in that anime to enjoy this game, though, and that’s for a couple reasons. For one, this game is set a few decades before that anime. For another, though, there’s only a whisper of storytelling happening in this game regardless. An intro cutscene sets you up as being a faceless mech-piloting contractor called a Drifter, who operates in a post-post apocalypse world alongside your own humanoid AI Magus companion. Once that’s set up, you’re tossed into your dilapidated garage of a base, told to start gathering resources, and so it goes.

Synduality Echo of Ada is much more about telling and discovering your own story, and it’ll often be a story of scraping by on a wish and a prayer – or not scraping by at all. As an extraction shooter, your goal is simple (on paper) – customise your loadout of weapons and consumables at home, then launch into a massive map at a randomised location. Your only mandatory goal is to find